I’m baaaaaaaaack

As I’ve said ad nauseum — Latin for “if he says that one more time, I’m going to throw up” — I only write things when I have something to say. What I have to say today is simple — I’m back.

Going through the last few months of observations, I have only this to offer:

Tragically, I missed LFNW: Next to the Southern California Linux Expo, Linux Fest Northwest is probably my favorite event of the year, in an area that’s definitely one of my favorite places on the planet. Heck, on their Web site leading up to the event last weekend, my head was in one of the revolving pictures — the one just after John “Mad Dog” Hall. Yes, incidentally, that is my better side. From what I am told, the event was a success. Next year, guys.

What’s in a name? Can I get a show of hands of folks who find the “Linux” and “GNU/Linux” naming debate as counterproductive to FOSS, in general, and to the FSF, in particular, as I do? Ah, I thought so. As an aside, Richard Stallman will be speaking at Stanford today, and if you have a chance, you should go. However, an invitation to have him come to Felton to speak at the Felton Linux User Group the following day turned into an “agreement to disagree” (at least on my part) on whether the simple term “Linux” implies that the history of Free Software starts in 1991 and that “LUG” doesn’t give credit where credit is due. Yet, I would be hard pressed to find a regular GNU/Linux user who doesn’t know GNU’s history and it’s relationship to the Linux kernel, but Stallman disagrees. But rather than speak to our group — a group which, per capita, probably own more “Free Software, Free Society” books and T-shirts than any other LUG — because in his estimation we are not “GNU-friendly” enough, San Francisco LUG posts on its mailing list an announcement that he’ll be speaking at Wordcamp in San Francisco on Saturday. And that’s fine — he can reach more people and he should be where he can get wider attention — but take a look at those less-than-GNU-friendly sponsors on the site! (Go ahead, I’ll wait).

So that’s what all the hubbub is about: I downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 and put it through its paces on the laptop and desktop (the Live CD only), and yep, the buttons on the left are, at first, a tad annoying and something to get used to. However, that’s minor, compared to the release itself, which is stellar. Not only this, there was an 11th hour bug where dual-booters couldn’t boot into anything other than Ubuntu — for dual-boots with Windows, I’d consider this a feature — and that was corrected before the version was released into the wild. Good work, Ubunteros.

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs Redwood Digital Research in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

You covered the question well. The FOSS, Open Source, gnu/Linux problem is killing us. Anyone with 6 months
of using Linux is well aware of the whole story. The
new comers to Linux or gnu/Linux are confused to the
point of leaving.

At the Texas Linux Fest (LtFSG missed another good meet)
your old buddy Randal Schwartz said: “I partied with RMS
and I partied with Linus. Linus was more fun to party
with.” That works for me.

Larry, carry on, report back to the Colonel when you have
achieved world peace and unity in the Linux world.